Dennis Kennedy

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August 31, 2004

High Tech, High Touch Via the ASP Model - Sendoutcards.com and Lawyer Marketing

I make no secret of the fact that I'm probably the biggest fan of the ASP (application service provider) model in the world of legal technology. I've recently learned of a very cool ASP approach that epitomizes the concept of "high tech, high touch."

My friend Glenn "The EsqLawTech Weekly" Garnes called me recently to talk to me about Sendoutcards.com. Glenn is an innovator, so I always take notice of anything he finds interesting. He usually has a good new business idea or two for me in the conversation as well.

My first reaction was that Glenn was describing to me an e-card service. I was wrong.

Sendoutcards.com applies the ASP model to the physical world of greeting cards and postcards. Think of "print on demand" cards.

It's a classic web interface approach. I can upload my contacts and mailing list. I can select among 2,500 card designs. I can add a personal message, of course. Even better, I can edit the standard message. How many times have you found a great card, only to open it and find an inappropriate message? I can even create and use a font based on my own handwriting.

After I get my mailing prepared, I transmit my order. Sendoutcards.com then physically prints out my cards and envelopes, has them stuffed into addressed envelopes, puts a first-class stamp on them, and mails them out.

Your clients and friends will receive a great, personalized card from you in the mail. It's easy to send cards on a regular basis to clients, friends and relatives. How good a job are you doing to get that done?

The cost: $1.00 per greeting card (including postage). A smaller amount for postcards.

Think of the last time you were at a drugstore or mall looking for cards. It took a long time and you ended up grabbing some sort of a compromise card. You probably paid $3 or more for the privilege.

Think of the costs in supplies, time and labor for your firm or organization to send out holiday cards or do a postcard marketing campaign. Sendoutcards.com is an attractive alternative, isn't it? Don't just think small firms or individuals. We all know the hassles in managing the greeting card mailings for a large law firm under your current "beg the attorneys to send out their cards" process. And that season will soon be upon us.

I had Glenn set me up with an account. He's a distributor. You can simply use the service or you can turn it into an income opportunity for yourself or your firm. Glenn has all the details. Take a look at the detailed info Glenn has put together at http://www.greetingcardwiz.com/. Then get in touch with Glenn by way of the contact link on that site (or contact him directly through his blog). Just tell Glenn you came to him from me or my blog and he'll take care of getting you set up.

Heck, Glenn can even set you up to use the system to send a card for yourself to experience how it works - a great idea if you have a wedding anniversary or spouse's birthday coming up soon. I'll personally vouch for that.

By way of disclosure, there is a little something in it for me if you sign up through Glenn and mention my blog, but it's better than the alternative of having me set up a little tip jar on this blog and begging for donations because you like my blog, isn't it? In any event, I wouldn't recommend the service if I didn't see a potential value and benefit for my readers. And, I use the service myself.

It's a great of example of "high tech, high touch" and a great way to save money while staying in better touch with your clients, friends and others. That's a combination that's hard to beat.

Posted by dmk at 02:24 PM

August 30, 2004

Client-Centric Marketing: What Clients Want

From the excellent SmartPros newsletter:

Client-Centric Marketing: What Clients Want makes a compelling case for August Aquila and Bruce Marcus's Client at the Core: Marketing and Managing Today's Professional Services Firm.

Here are some excerpts from the review's excerpts from the book:

• Because clients are more sophisticated in the ways of the law and accounting, they no longer accept the advice of the professional without questioning, challenging, demanding more reasoning and detail.
• Because of the complexity of business today, clients demand that their professionals know more about the clients' business and industry than ever before.
• Professional services always function best when trust is at the heart of the relationship, but the corporate scandals of recent years have eroded that trust. That trust must now be regenerated.
• Where once the narrow structures of a profession were sufficient to serve clients, clients now demand a broader spectrum of capabilities. The more broadly educated and well-rounded professional is the one with the greater advantage in meeting the needs of today's clients.

These excerpts are singing one of my songs - note the emphasis I placed on client-driven technology initiatives in the law firm portion of this post. I've added the book to my reading list.

Posted by dmk at 12:34 PM

LawNet 2004 Redux

Back from LawNet. Great show. Great time. Met lots of great people doing cool stuff, but didn't get the chance to meet up with everyone that I hoped to. (Sorry about that.)

A big thank you to SydneyPLUS and the audience for my KM talks. I was very pleased with how the presentation turned out and it's not often I have a Q & A session that lasts two-and-a-half hours and turns out to be such a good time. There was a video made of the presentation, which I will try to make available later this fall.

Not unexpectedly, I returned with a ton of new ideas, which will gradually filter their way through my blog, other outlets and my work for clients.

Posted by dmk at 12:12 PM

August 24, 2004

Electronic Discovery Showcase

Although a free registration is required, it's a small price to pay for the good collection of articles on electronic discovery (the acronym for which is, somewhat mysteriously, EDD) on LawTechnologyNews this month. Good articles from George Socha, Craig Ball, Donna Payne, Albert Barsocchini, Ross Kodner and others.

Don't forget the great virtual roundtable discussion on electtronic discovery on Law Practice Today and the great set of articles and resources at DiscoveryResources.org.

Posted by dmk at 11:13 AM

August 23, 2004

URLinfo from FaganFinder - Way Cool!

Thanks to Sabrina at BeSpacific.com for the mention about and link to FaganFinder's URLinfo.com. URLinfo pulls together a whole bunch of great tools in one place - track links to your site and blog, search engine placement and much. much more. It's in beta, but it's very cool.

Warning: You can spend a lot of time on this page trying different things.

Posted by dmk at 10:11 PM

My Recent 5 by 5 Post on Legal Technology

Matt "the ]non]billable hour" Homann periodically runs a feature on his blog called "Five by Five" that features five experts answering a thought-provoking question. I recently participated with legal tech experts Ron Friedmann, Jerry Lawson, Jeff Beard and Kevin Heller in a Five by Five on "What five new technologies should all lawyers incorpoate into their practices, but probably won't?"

I've reproduced my answer below:

There is a certain sense of resignation in the question that, as the eternal technology optimist, I�m unwilling to accept. On the other hand, lawyers are notoriously late adopters of technology. I put together my first document assembly application for drafting wills in 1990 and document assembly is still treated as a new development by many lawyers.

Technology implementation should be considered in terms of portfolio management, just as you would do with your financial investments. Diversification should be your bedrock principle, mixing together low, medium and high risks and low, medium and high returns across your �technology portfolio.� Lawyers, conservative by nature, tend to stick solely to the low risk, low return approach, which will be as devastating over the long run as will a solely low risk, low return investment policy be as it gets hammered by cycles of inflation.

�Safe� and �prudent� approaches require that you direct some of your investment, in technology or otherwise, in higher risk, innovative approaches that may pay off extraordinarily well or may cost you your shirt, but make sense in terms of a diversified portfolio. The one approach that I believe all lawyers and law firms should incorporate into their practices, but probably won�t, is the application of modern portfolio theory to technology.

I�ve provided two sets of answers, a detailed set for individual lawyers and a quick list for law firms, because many times the interests of firms and lawyers are quite different. What the two should have in common today, however, is that technology should be implemented on an �lawyers first� priority, meaning that the needs of the lawyers in their practices should be given the highest consideration, rather than the traditional �secretaries and staff first� approach or today�s common �IT Department first� approach. My opinion on this point has proven to be more controversial than I ever expected.

Five For Individual Lawyers

I have a simple three-step approach for technology decision-making for individual lawyers. First, honestly and courageously identify your existing system that will be affected by the technology you are considering and clearly spell it out in writing � no matter how wacky it may be (e.g., �certain pieces of paper are stacked on my desk, others are on a chair, others are on a credenza and others are on the floor, but I (or my secretary) usually know where everything is�). Second, ask yourself whether the technology you are considering either (1) replaces the existing system with something better or (2) improves or enhances the existing system. If the answer is �no� in both cases, either forget about the technology or admit to yourself that you will buy it only because you �want� it. Finally, if your answer is �yes,� make your decision about how the costs and benefits balance out for you.

1. Technology to Help You Manage Your Time and Priorities. How many balls do you have in the air? There is nothing that would help any lawyer more, yet gets considered less, than something that will truly help manage time and priorities. The big problem is that every one is different, so there is no single answer. In a firm setting, you will get a one-size-fits-all-that-actually-works-well-for-nobody approach. The fact is that many lawyers have their own �DayTimer� or other system. They then create (or are forced to create) a parallel system on their computer. The result: the worst of all possible worlds � multiple calendars and to do lists and ensuing chaos.

You must find a technological solution that takes the place of the paper system to have any chance of success. There are solutions that may work well for you � The MasterList, Outlook with David Allen�s Getting Things Done add-in, case management programs, mind mapping programs. This is so important that, in a firm setting, you should be willing to spend your own money to get a solution that works for you. That�s how important this issue is.

2. Technology to Help You Find Things That You Need When You Need Them. Lawyers spend a stunning proportion of their time trying to find things that are hidden in piles, files and even in the ceiling tiles. The reasons relate to the problems I mentioned in category #1, the steady stream of interruptions and crises in the average lawyer�s day, and to their own failings at personal organization. �A place for everything and everything in its place� makes perfect sense, but the notion gets blown away when people drop off files, your mail arrives and you get fifty emails all while you are on a telephone call with a crisis that has interrupted what you were in the middle of working on.

Computers where supposed to help with this, but papers and voicemail still don�t make it into our digital systems and our computer world consists of separate and unconnected �silos� of information � documents, email, bookmarks, RSS feeds, and the list goes on and on. Our document management system does not do the trick. It doesn�t cover everything and we never bothered to fill in the field that would have helped us.

Interestingly, solos and small firm lawyers may be in the best position in this area. They can use a simpler document management program like Worldox, which includes a great local search capability, or get great results from a general case management tool. Both local search engine tools and the �enterprise search� category of tools also show some promise.

3. Technology to Help You �Remember� What You Already Know When You Need to Know It. This category is different from category #2. It�s what you can focus on only after you get a handle on the �finding things� problem. Because of your experience, there are many things that you �know.� There are also many things you (or someone in your firm) have researched, found an answer for, done before, found the appropriate resource person or created something that can be reused. It might be a document. It might be a note about a client�s birthday, a recommended expert, a recent case, a good article, an important URL or some handwritten notes. Unfortunately, there�s no personal search engine for your brain yet.

We need to capture, store, be able to retrieve, and, ideally, to incorporate into our existing forms and processes all of this knowledge and know-how. The phrase to remember is �personal knowledge management.� Unfortunately, the key word is �personal.� Again, this something we all do differently and there�s no single solution.

However, we need to work on finding a tool or set of tool. I advocate a �do-it-yourself knowledge management� approach. Start finding all of the tools you already have that you can use. You can use more features of some of the tools I mention in category #2 as a start. If you have document assembly applications, you can begin to incorporate experience, expertise and knowledge into your forms on a routine basis. In the litigation context, CaseMap is a perfect tool for getting results in this area. Another example Outlook 2003 users might consider is the suite of tools included in the �Business Contact Manager� component of Outlook.

4. Technology to Help Your Clients in Ways They Will Appreciate. One of my pet topics is �client-driven technology.� Lawyers and law firms are notorious for not using (and, in some cases, refusing to use) software that is compatible with what their clients use. I�ve talked with many people who have complained vocally about their lawyers sending them documents in WordPerfect or in a format they can�t use. In one case that I remember especially well, the complaint ended with this: �They are working for us and they should give us the documents in the format we use.� It�s hard to argue with that point.

Other stories abound about lawyers unable to use email, create PDF files or pronounce the word �Pentium� correctly. To make the situation worse, your business clients already assume that you have state of the art technology. When they say that they think you can create their agreements with a push of the button, they really mean that. I�ve seen lawyers who will say �yes, we can do that� to clients on legal issues they have never heard of tell clients that there is �no way� they can adopt a technology that would help the client. I�ve seen that even when the client has offered to pay for the new technology.

This category is the easiest category to make positive changes and see positive benefits. The first step is preposterously easy. Ask your clients about what they use and their preferred ways of working with you. Legal tech consultant Adriana Linares has a simple technology survey that can be made part of the engagement letter or the client intake process. The second step is to evaluate your current technology and any contemplated changes in light of its �friendliness� to clients. The third step is to do a little research into all of the �low hanging fruit� projects you can do right now. Take the lead on providing your clients with metadata scrubbing guidelines and tools or ways to address security issues. Use extranets, deal rooms and electronic workspaces where you can clearly save your clients money. How many clients today tell their friends, �My lawyer just came up with a great new way for me to save money�? Consider electronic billing, electronic closing binders in PDF, and the new ReportBooks in CaseMap 5. It�s all part of showing clients that you care about their businesses and not just yours.

5. Technology to Help You Practice Law in the Way You�ve Always Envisioned. If you talked the best students at the best law schools who want to work for the best litigation firms, you probably would not find a single one whose vision of the practice of law includes finding themselves in a rodent-infested warehouse full of cardboard boxes of old files stamping numbers on pieces of paper for twelve hours a day for months at a time. Yet, that�s where they might find themselves. I think the vision would be more that they are using sophisticated search and visualization tools on a laptop computer to locate the fact no one else could have found that wins the case and instant partnership for them.

That�s one thing. What�s worse, though, is seeing the lawyers who have reached the holy grail of partnership only to find that they work harder and longer hours, have more pressures, and find that they have little, if any, enjoyment about what they do. Tom Davenport, a knowledge management expert, has written that we may now spend 40% of our work day fighting against the tools that were implemented to help us be more productive. In any law firm, there will be a lot of hardware, software and systems that are far more burden than benefit. Almost everyone learns to live with that, to their detriment.

A far better approach is to focus your technological change on ways to reduce your pain and increase both your ability and your time to do the work you love. There are endless ways to do this. For me, the answer might be a blog that allows me to talk about a subject I like and attract others interested in the same thing. For you, it might be a way to automate a time-consuming and tedious process so that you can spend more time talking with your clients and helping them do what they want rather than trying to talk them into taking approaches that better fit your existing forms. For someone else, it might be to get the Tablet PC that you know would really help you out. For others, it might be finding a way to automate the routine work you are doing for a great client and free up the time to do much higher-level work.

There�s never been a time where we have had more tools and capabilities available to us that could enable us to spend more time doing the things that brought us to the practice of law and the things we love the most. I don�t want to be one of those people who said I could have done that, but I didn�t. As the quote goes, �some ask why, but I ask why not?� I�m one the �why not� people.

A Quick Five for Law Firms.

1. Client-retaining Technologies. Compatible software and systems; extranets; electronic billing; document assembly applications; online education; creative file management; allowing clients to track their projects.

2. Client-pleasing Technologies. Technology that reduces cost or streamlines process and allows you to try alternative billing methods; telling clients about solutions that have worked for you that might work for them; collaborative projects where you adapt to their technologies; automated delivery of relevant news and developments; automating processes requiring them to pay for the same number of hours over and over again; coming to clients with HIPAA, Sarbanes Oxley and other solutions rather than waiting for clients to ask for them.

3. Client-focused Technologies. Technologies that make it easy for clients to work with you; extranets or other applications designed with clients in mind; facilitating access to your IT staff to resolve problems; fixing technology and communications issues; taking the initiative in technology projects with clients; handling document filing and management issue or tracking cases; IP filings or other matters; getting bills to clients in a way that fits their accounting systems.

4. Client-producing Technologies. Websites, blogs and feeds; creative uses of extranets for training and other purposes; business intelligence and customer relationship management tools; innovative billing arrangements enabled by technology; winning a high-profile case using state-of-the-art presentation and other litigation technologies; not sending your lawyers out to clients with aging technology.

5. Keeping Your Best People Technologies. Willingness to take individual approaches; generous replacement and acquisition policies for new technology; willingness to allow test projects; listening to young lawyers; rewarding creativity and results more than raw numbers of hours; helping people learn to use software better; resisting the urge to say �no� to every request for new technology; getting technology into the hands of the people who are most likely to use it best; give your people the tools they need, the respect they need and a little room so that they can fly.

The Product List.

I got to thinking that Matt might have meant products. Here are five that should be on every lawyer�s list in today�s legal world.

1. CaseMap 5 (if you are a litigator).
2. Microsoft Office 2003.
3. Adobe Acrobat 6.
4. Tablet PC (or notebook) with WiFi and OneNote.
5. FeedDemon or news aggregator of choice.

Posted by dmk at 09:33 PM

New Law Practice Today Mentoring Issue

I'm biased because I'm on the board of the ABA's Law Practice Today webzine, but we just published another issue that rocks. The featured theme is mentoring - about as important a topic as there is. You'll find the best collection of articles on lawyer mentoring I've seen. Highly recommended.

My contribution is the this month's "Strongest Links" column called "Finding Great Resources about Mentoring on the Internet May Be Even More Difficult Than Finding a Great Mentor On Your Own" - a reflection on mentors I have known and mentoring in general, and a set of links to excellent Internet resources on mentoring.

Great work by Wendy Werner and Fred "Let's Ride" Faulkner, especially, that went into this one.

Posted by dmk at 09:17 PM

Adam Smith Esq. Has a Serious Message for All Lawyers

Bruce MacEwen at Adam Smith, Esq. has been in the zone lately with a string of excellent. thought-provoking posts. His post today, "There is No Place for the Computer in the Home," may be the best one of this stretch.

Maybe it's because Bruce talks in terms of "structural" problems, something I tend to do, but Bruce makes an important point about the growing disconnect between business, law and innovation and ties it to one of the least prophetic quotes of the computer era. It will make you think.

I recommend reading this post and spending a few minutes reading Bruce's recent posts. Of course, subscribing to the feed should be a given.

Posted by dmk at 09:02 PM

August 22, 2004

CaseSoft Releases New DepPrep Tool

CaseSoft has added another product to its great line of litigation software tools. Once again, CaseSoft has created a great tool that fits a compelling need for litigators at a compelling price ($149.95 for DepPrep, with a special $79.95 price until August 31 available here).

From the DepPrep web page:

"DepPrep is an electronic tutorial that makes it easy to groom witnesses for their depositions. All aspects of deposition preparation are covered -- everything from deponent demeanor to how to answer a question.

DepPrep isn�t intended to eliminate the interaction between witness and counsel as deposition approaches. Rather, DepPrep enhances the time counsel spends with a witness. Instead of dealing with perfunctory points, you�re free to focus on the most critical issues. Moreover, witnesses who spend 30 � 45 minutes with DepPrep are ready to make the most out of their interaction with counsel."

Remember that I've put together a special arrangement with CaseSoft for readers of my blog.

Posted by dmk at 09:18 PM

OneNote 2003 Price Dropped to $99.95

I haven't found a lot of takers yet, but I continue to say that Microsoft's OneNote 2003, especially when combined with a Tablet PC, is a must-try program for lawyers. From the Windows Secrets Newsletter comes the news that Microsoft has dropped the price by 50% and you can get OneNote for $99.95. Apparently, the news of the price drop has been slow to reach retailers, so the best route is to order directly from Microsoft for now.

With the enhancements found in Service Pack 1 for OneNote and some cool new PowerToys discussed by Michael Hyatt and available here, here and here, OneNote has become even more interesting - at least to me.

Posted by dmk at 09:01 PM

August 18, 2004

The Many Unexpected Benefits of Electronic Discovery

George Socha and I write a column called "The Electronic Discoverers" at DiscoveryResources.org. Our new column, The Many Unexpected Benefits of Electronic Discovery, has just been published.

Our premise is that all is not gloom and doom in the world of electronic discovery. There are some unexpected benefits for clients, lawyers, law firms and even the legal system.

From the column:

"Focusing on the search for the �smoking gun� may cause you to overlook some of the many other benefits of electronic discovery, many of which fall into the 'better, faster, cheaper' category. "

Posted by dmk at 07:56 PM

KM or Chaos - My LawNet Presentation

I'll be speaking on August 25 at LawNet on knowledge management in law firms. The session, presented by SydneyPlus, has the title "KM or Chaos: Choosing the Best Paths for KM in Law Firms" and will focus on practical tips to make law firm KM efforts more successful. I'm quite pleased with the way the presentation is shaping up and I'm putting the finishing touches on a set of handouts that will be my most complete effort to collect my thoughts on KM to date. And, it will have a great list of resources. For more info, see the program description here. I see SydneyPLUS's kmBuilder as a tool that can help work around many of the well-known difficulties most IT people have found when working with lawyers.

If you are attending LawNet, I hope to get the chance to see you and say hello, either at my session or elsewhere around the conference.

Posted by dmk at 04:24 PM

August 17, 2004

Is Evan Schaeffer the "Anonymous Lawyer"

It wasn't until I read Evan Schaeffer's lengthy and detailed analysis of the Anonymous Lawyer yesterday that the realization suddenly hit me - Evan could in fact also be the Anonymous Lawyer.

Think about the following:

1. Evan is way, way too interested in the details of the Anonymous Lawyer and the hidden identity of the Anonymous Lawyer. Way, way, way too interested, if you ask me. Very suspicious.

2. Evan and the Anonymous Lawyer are, by wide consensus, the only two humorous legal bloggers. Think about it, what are the odds that there are actually two lawyers who have a sense of humor and can write humorously?

3. Evan is the only legal blogger who has kept multiple well-written blogs going for a long time. Might he not have one more (Anonymous Lawyer) also going, hmmm?

4. Evan's knowledge of the details of the Anonymous Lawyer posts is encyclopedic - not what you would expect from the casual fan.

5. Evan's never let himself be seen in person. Neither has Anonymous Lawyer. QED.

6. Evan's entire post yesterday appears to be a trial balloon that floats future plot lines for the Anonymous Lawyer.

7. Most importantly, Evan's blog is replete with characters he has invented. He's no amateur at creating fake characters. My favorite character, by the way, the one who is always defending trial lawyers - that one cracks me up every time.

8. There have been other clues that I am not yet ready to divulge.

Perhaps we can find an expert text analyst to determine if Evan's blogs and the Anonymous Lawyer are, in fact, written by different people, or whether the multi-talented Mr. Schaeffer has created yet another masterful ruse. I hope that the answer is the former, because, if it is the latter, I would be forced to proclaim that Evan is not only the funniest lawyer blogger, but also the king of all lawyer bloggers.

[DISCLAIMER: This post includes multiple attempts at humor and should be regarded by lawyers as such, to the extent possible, rather than taken literally in each instance.]

Posted by dmk at 11:07 AM

August 16, 2004

How to Attract Clients: Sell Nothing

Ned Steele has a good little article called "How to Attract Clients: Sell Nothing in today's Smart Pros newsletter.

It has a simple message and five easy little steps to conduct a low-key and effective marketing campaign that has the virtue of its regularity, its focus on helpfulness, and its ease of implementation.

To summarize briefly:

Have a good database of clients, prospects, referral sources, and potential prospects.

Use your database often.

Use your database smartly.

Mix your tools.

Go to the media.

Then, as he concludes, "Finally: REPEAT THE ABOVE REGULARLY. And watch the prospects come calling."

A short, wise and highly recommended article, perfect for a slow August afternoon in your office.

Posted by dmk at 05:50 PM

August 13, 2004

Six Ways to Unmuddle Your Legal Writing

I'm a big fan of Evan "Notes from the Legal Underground" Schaeffer. Evan offers guest blogging opportunities on his blog. He wrote a great series of articles on improving your writing recently and I wanted to highlight his great series of articles as well as add a few comments of my own.

The result is a piece called "Six Way to Unmuddle Your Writing," which distills some of my observations about legal writing.

It goes something like this:

Six Great Ways to Unmuddle Your Writing

1. Know Your Subject Matter. I find most muddled writing in places where the writer does not fully understand their subject. It�s no different from when you are asked a question about a point about which you are uncertain. You stammer, start to use jargon, reach for more polysyllabic words, ramble around in circumlocutions, and generally try to change the subject. The same phenomenon happens in writing. Take a close look at something you wrote on a subject that you know very well. Then take a look at something you wrote where you didn�t really understand your subject. Notice the difference. Try to write in the former style more often.

2. Write with the Action You Want to Obtain Firmly in Mind. What do you want your reader to do after they read what you have written? It�s endlessly surprising how often lawyers, whose job, after all, is to persuade people, forget this point. Read what you have written and when you finish, ask yourself, �so what?� Focus on the action you want your reader to take in response to your writing. Then go back and edit, remove and rearrange what you have written so that your revised draft leads the read to the desired action. It is hard to convince a reader to do what you want even if you write clearly, but it is impossible when your reader has to try to figure out what action you want.

3. Put Yourself in the Place of Your Reader. Remember that your reader is at least as tired, distracted and unable to concentrate as you are. You want to write in a way that anticipates that state of mind. What is your reaction to receiving a ten-page, single-spaced letter with no headings, bullet points or executive summary? Why do you expect your reader to have any different reaction? Do you like section headings, numbered points, short paragraphs, executive summaries, a one-paragraph conclusion at the end or other reader-friendly techniques? Lots of other people do too. Do not forget that your writing is meant to be read by another human. Make it easy for them to do so.

4. Write in Your Own Voice. Many lawyers spend the early part of their careers learning how to write for one or more partners. Other lawyers tend to write in ways that they think that lawyers should write. In each case, they are not writing in their own voice. Writing clearly in your own voice is difficult enough. You may not be able to avoid writing for your supervising lawyer, but avoid making your life harder and your writing even less clear by pretending to be someone else when you write. Reading aloud what you write is a great exercise to help you develop your voice.

5. Copy Your Best. I have interviewed hundreds of law students in the law firm hiring process. I tried to learn a few lessons from this experience. In fact, as some of the people I have �coached� on interview skills will tell you, I learned quite a few lessons. Here is an important one. If a candidate becomes convinced during the interview that he or she really wants the job, their demeanor, approach and even posture change radically. It is quite striking. Interestingly, whether or not you are interested in the job, you can easily mimic this response in any interview that you have and your likelihood of success increases greatly. Is it �fair� to do this? I will leave that question for you, but there is no reason not to take a similar approach to your writing. Find examples of your best writing � the ones that got you the results that you wanted � and study them. For example, compare how you wrote a slam-dunk winner of an argument to how you wrote a sure-fire loser. Then start to copy your best and most persuasive writing, even in places where you don�t have your best and most persuasive arguments.

6. Realize that It�s a Journey, Not a Destination. There is always room to improve and lessons to learn. The goal is to write in the best way for your audience to understand and respond in the way that you want. Be open to hear constructive criticism and make adjustments that further this goal. In most cases, criticism of your written work is not criticism of you. There are many roads to this goal, but a long way to travel. Take it one step at a time.

*****

You can read the article in full form on Evan's excellent Notes from the Legal Underground blog.

By the way, I really enjoyed doing a guest blogging gig and would be happy to consider other guest blogging spots that might fit my interests and schedules.

Posted by dmk at 04:18 PM

August 10, 2004

This Week's Issue of IP Memes

Here are few selections from this week's issue of TechnoLawyer.com's IP Memes newsletter. The IP Memes newsletter is available for a free registration and this week's issue was put together by me.

The Presidential Election, Copyright, INDUCE Act (IICA) and Tech Policy

Ernest Miller's blog, "The Importance of . . .," has become a focal point for information and news for the controversial INDUCE Act. He's also begun to pull together information, when he and others can drag it out of the candidates, about the intellectual property stands of the presidential candidates. It's a great place to check if you are interested in trying to learn what might happen in IP law after the 2004 election.

Link to Election Post

Safeguarding Trade Secrets in the Information Age

Sheryl Willert has a comprehensive article on trade secret protection in the August issue of FindLaw's Modern Practice webzine. As she says, "There are no easy solutions to the problem of protecting trade secrets in the information age. But there are definite steps the employer can take, and these include monitoring business equipment and promulgating unambiguous policies." Getting to "unambiguous? is no easy task, but this article will give you a handy primer of the issues you must consider.

Link to Trade Secrets Article

Exploring the Patent Explosion

Berkeley's Bronwyn Hall recent paper takes a close look at the various sources of patent growth in the United States since 1984, drawing some interesting conclusions. Hall notes increases in market value of companies in industries where patent growth surged. The paper also draws some conclusions about the difference in approaches between entry companies and incumbent companies.

Link to Hall's Paper

If You Have Been Feeling that it's Taking Longer to Get Patents

For chart and graphics fans, IPO.org has a great chart showing the ebb and flow of the length of the pendency of patent applications since 1979, all compared to the baseline goal of 18 months.

Link to Patent Chart

Copyscape Internet Infringement Protection

To my surprise, Copyscape's new "infringement protection" service has generated some buzz recently. I've been finding "republishers" of my articles for years by running searches on selected quotes and titles of articles. However, Copyscape offers some nice enhancements and you can run a search on the URL of your article or image. In my test, I found a good number of results that did not seem relevant to my selected article, but I'll be darned if I didn't find a 100% reproduction of my article with no attribution to me whatsoever. I'm impressed enough to recommend that you try Copyscape, although "searching by hand" continues to work quite well.

Link to Copyscape

Columbia University Law Library Music Copyright Infringement Online Archive

The resources you can now find on the Internet are almost without limit. Matt Buchanan's IP blog, Promote the Progress, recently put the spotlight on Columbia Law Library?s online archive about well-known music copyright infringement cases over the years. I agree with Matt's comment that providing music downloads of the songs at issue would be a cool next step.

Link to Columbia Online Archive

Link to Promote the Progress post

Posted by dmk at 11:09 PM

Greenspan Hurls "Stee-rike 2!" Against Bush Re-Election Campaign

The Fed raised interest rates again today, making the second increase during this election year. Another increase is projected for September, with more to follow.

Has anyone done the research on the odds of re-election of a sitting president when the Fed raises interest rates three or more times in an election year? I have to think that the odds would be pretty slim.

It's turning into a baseball-related campaign, at least from my point of view. I'm shocked that the Bush campaign is not running the footage of Kerry one-hopping the first pitch of that Red Sox game in every single commercial. The Dems are lucky that the Kerry in a bunny suit pictures kept that video from getting overplayed.

Ultimately, though, it looks like we have a classic "is it time to fire the coach?" decision ahead of us, especially as the "team" continues to drop balls.

With a third strike from pitching ace Greenspan, Bush may well find himself out on strikes.

Posted by dmk at 10:54 PM

August 07, 2004

A "Power Drill" for KM

More shared research notes for my upcoming KM presentration.

Lawyers absolutely will not cooperate with completing fields, creating or complying with taxonomies, or creating other useful metadata.

The big question: are there ways to "route around" this self-defeating behavior that make more sense the trying to change behavior (which is probably impossible in most firms)?

How about throwing high-horsepower data mining tools at unstructured data?

See Edmunds.com deploy text mining tools for user forum (Ephraim Schwartz)

"In beta trials now, Edmunds.com will be deploying a technology from Attensity called PowerDrill that converts written language into relational data.

PowerDrill takes the unstructured data, namely sentences, and diagrams the sentences placing each part of speech, such as noun phrase, verb phrase, and prepositional phrase, into a separate field, actor, action, and object which can then be used by a standard database to discover relationships and trends.

Although text mining for content intelligence is covered by a number of other companies such as ClearForest Tags, Inxight SmartDiscovery, and IBM WebFountain products, Laura Ramos, vice president at Forrester Research, called Attenisty's diagram capability unique. "

AND

"In a test with Honda Odyssey, a highly anticipated 2005 car model, information from drivers of previous model years was tabulated, allowing Edmunds.com to show that the most needed improvements were in road noise, transmission issues, and styling.

Edmunds.com was able to analyze trend information from conversations on the forums, including shopping and dealer behavior, re-occurring issues, and concerns which can also be used to predict future behavior.

Companies such as Edmunds.com as well as government agencies are suddenly waking up to the richness of unstructured data, according to one industry analyst."

Recall John Gilmore's "The Internet treats censorship as damage and routes around it." Might it be that we can treat bad metadata creation behaviors of lawyers as damage that we can (and perhaps should) route around?

Posted by dmk at 09:12 AM

Dave Pollard on Expertise Finders

From Dave Pollard's must-read and aptly-named blog, How to Save the World:

EXPERTISE FINDERS: POLLARD GOES LOOKING FOR ANSWERS

Do you see the outline of the "law firm of the future" in this post? If not, you might want to read it more closely and think about it a little longer.

Pollard's blog is a constant source of great new ideas and new ways of looking at old ideas. This post, in particular, is likely to have a lot of impact in a number of areas, KM being only the most obvious.

Posted by dmk at 08:55 AM

Bloggers Creating Businesses

From Blog Business World:

1. Creating businesses with bloggers

2. Finding Business Opportunities

The money quote (and something to meditate on every morning for a while):

"The qualties that make a great blogger are one that are required to become a successful entrepreneur. It's time to consider forming your own business, in partnership with other blog writers, and create your own company."

You know how to reach me.

Posted by dmk at 08:34 AM

August 06, 2004

KM Resources - Search and Taxonomies White Paper, Blog23 and Twyla Tharp

I've been doing some research and planning for an upcoming KM presentation. I've found three great resources recently that I wanted to share.

1. A modestly intrusive free registration is required, but the white paper : EContent Leadership Series: Strategies for Search, Taxonomiy and Classification looks like (since I haven't completely read it all yet, I can't make any pronouncement yet) it might be a treasure trove of articles about the areas of search and taxonomies. I learned about it this morning from Econtent Magazine's ECXtra Bulletin. The teaser for the white paper was compelling - "BECAUSE WHAT WOULD YOU RATHER DO? SEARCH . . . OR FIND?"

The whole notion of taxonomies raises a difficult practical issue in legal KM. If you mention the word "taxonomy" to a lawyer, you've all but lost him or her. If you use "taxonomy" and "ontology" in the same conversation (let alone, God forbid, in the same sentence) with a lawyer, you might as well spend your time talking to a brick wall.

For lawyers, using the term "finding tools" will be a better approach than talking about "search engines." It's like the switch in perspective that comes from saying that our real focus when buying a power drill is not really the drill, instead it's the hole that we plan to make.

2. In one of those cases where I'm not sure whether this post is really great because it is great or because I agree with it, Blog23's Personalization, Classification and Staying Ahead of the Reader makes some profound observations about how we think, learn and organize information.

Here's the premise:

"But there is something that can be done online which isn't possible in print, and that is to reconfigure my newspaper to the topics I want to read about, to make smart choices for me and to give me easy ways to make my own choices about what to read."

In brief, the post sets out the positives and negatives of the two most common approaches to info consumption - personalization and categorization. Most of us will agree with the limitations of these approaches.

There is also a third alternative (and I think there may be more). This third alternative is called a "document-centric" approach. To summarize this approach:

"For us, the document is in a class of its own (or a bucket of its own, to stay with the earlier metaphor). So, we don't have just one bucket, or 400,000 buckets, but as many buckets as there are documents, each of which can temporarily become home to other, related documents according to the user's interests. The document is our best guide to what the reader is interested in right now. The document is richer than its metadata (unless that metadata cost more to produce than the story). And the reader's interest in the document may be different from the interest of someone who happens to have read some other documents that I've also read."

I'm intrigued by this - it "feels" right to me. Both my personal interests and my categories do change (I'm about to dump my latest effort at creating a useful subfolder system and try another, much looser, one). Categories and documents make the most sense within the applicable context. In other words, I regularly find that I do not know what the "right" category is (or whether an "info object" should be in more than one category) until I am in a place where I want to use it.

However, the answer is neither singular, simple, or even yet known:

"But all three appraoches have merit (personalization, classification and document-centrification -- OK, we'll have to think of a better -ation there), and perhaps the best way to serve the reader is for all of us to collectively keep churning out new and innovative ways of helping users find the information they want, perhaps combining several of our techniques into an intuitive UI, giving the user that thing which makes their world go around: choice."

Yeah, baby. You are talking to me now. There's some cool stuff going on in that area around Blog23.

3. I plan to write more about this next item in the neaar future, but suffice it to say that Twyla Tharp's recent book, The Creative Habit, has completely changed my thinking on KM and a number of other important things. It also helped me finish several uncompleted projects that were dogging and blocking me - no small feat. And, on top of that, you get an "open the hood" look into the creative processes of one of our greatest living artists as she discusses how she created some of her most successful (and unsuccessful) works.

Here's my best short review of the book - I have now finished my fourth reading of the book and my copy is full of notes, markings and underlines. I can guarantee you that this is not my usual reaction to a book. You may not "see" how this book might apply to KM or to you, but if you have developed any confidence at all in my opinions, you will want to read this book in the very near future.

Posted by dmk at 12:01 PM

Beyond Bullets - Aristotle's Top Ten PowerPoint Tips

I amke no secret of the fact that I am a huge fan of the Beyond Bullets blog, an incredibly useful site on the subjects of PowerPoint and presentations.

The most recent lesson from Beyond Bullets is called Aristotle's Top Ten PowerPoint Tips

Here's the fundamental problem:

"When you work in PowerPoint in a storyboard view, it can be a very powerful way to capture, distill and arrange your thoughts. But PowerPoint is also a visual design tool, and we've unfortunately fallen victim to an unfortunate side-effect -- obsessing over the surfaces of individual slides at the expense of the structure of the argument across slides. In many cases, there is no rhetorical structure whatsoever in a PowerPoint presentation, only a loosely-related string of lists. Instead of a strong and clear argument, we get a weak and fragmented assortment of ideas that muddy up the minds of the audience and the speaker."

Here are Aristotle's (that's the ancient Greek Aristotle, not Shaq, the Big Aristotle) top ten tips:

"1. Be logical.
2. Think clearly.
3. Reason cogently.
4. Remember that argument is the life and soul of persuasion.
5. Study human nature.
6. Observe the characters and emotions of your audience, as well as your own character and emotions.
7. Attend to delivery.
8. Use language rightly.
9. Arrange your material well.
10. End crisply."

Finally, the Beyond Bullet's lesson to be learned:

"Tip: Before you start working on your visuals, view your PowerPoint slides in Slide Sorter and check them against this 10-point checklist of tips. Are your headlines logical, and orderly? Have you researched your audience? Do you have a crisp ending? Practice giving the presentation to your team with only the headlines, so you can attend to your delivery. When your headlines, storyboard structure and delivery have all passed the bar of Aristotle's Top 10 Tips, then it's time to start working on your visuals, confident they have a solid foundation to rest upon. This way, even if your laptop fails and you don't have a PowerPoint to work with, you'll know you have 2,500 years of history to guide your sails on a clear course toward results."

I've probably given at least a hundred different PowerPoint presentations and read just about everything I can get my hands on about using PowerPoint. I can tell you that you will have a difficult time finding any better advice than what you will find in this Beyond Bullets post.

If you are a serious student of PowerPoint, I'll tell you that the two books from which I have unquestionably learned the most about using PowerPoint in presentations are Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics and Jerry Weissman's Presenting to Win, neither of which, as the astute reader might notice, appear to have much to do with PowerPoint.

Posted by dmk at 12:37 AM

Marketing Pros Say Now is the Time to Advertise on Blogs

I love it when marketing experts and professionals make the argument that I've been making for a while. It somehow seems so self-serving when I say it.

From AdRants:

Tom Hespos Says Advertise on Weblogs Now

"Underscore Marketing's Tom Hespos writes in a MediaPost article about the benefits of weblog advertising.

While blogs carve out their niche in the realm of news media, advertisers and marketers can benefit tremendously. The blogosphere, as it is called, is filled with influential opinion leaders. By adding blogs to your media campaign, you can tap into these influentials through advertising and sponsorship and see a nice return for a comparatively light spend. Enjoy it while it lasts. Blogs won't be a cheap media buy forever, especially after our society fully embraces them as a critically important part of political communication and discourse."

I prefer to use a "sponsorship" approach on my blog. Let's talk about opportunities here and at The Blawg Channel.

Posted by dmk at 12:06 AM

August 05, 2004

Seminars I Wish I Could Attend - Free Software Foundation

The General Public License might well be one of the top ten most influential legal documents of the 20th century. It certainly is one of the most influential legal documents that most lawyers have no awareness of.

On August 24 and 25, the Free Software Foundation will be putting on a two-day, in-depth seminar at Stanford University on the GPL and other aspects of Free Software and Open Source software. If you are involved in technology law, this program is one to take a good hard look at to see if you can attend. With presenters like Dan Ravicher, you are going to get as good an understanding of the GPL as it is possible to get in two days. For more information on the GPL and the Open Source licenses, my Open Source License Law Resource Page is a good starting point.

In my case, I'll be at LawNet at the same time, where I'll be speaking about KM on behalf of SydneyPLUS and hoping to get the chance to meet up with some of the legal tech bloggers who will be attending.

I got the grand tour of SydneyPLUS's kmBuilder yesterday and it impressed the heck out of me for several reasons. First, it seems extraordinarily "forgiving" in that it allows you to make major modifications and revisions to database templates and fields on the fly, allowing great customization. Second, they come into legal KM from a strong library and library science background, making their approach to handling information much more nuanced and friendly than the typical law firm IT department approach. Third, well, you will have to attend my presentation.

Posted by dmk at 03:55 PM

August 04, 2004

Applying Open Source to the Legal Process: A Perfect Example

Marty "The Trademark Blog" Schwimmer is one of the few lawyers I know whogets the Open Source philosophy, its implications and its applications.

In his post, "Let's Open Source The International Trademark Metasearch," Marty identifies a significant problem, sees a solution that commercial developers probably cannot or will not solve, and recognizes how an Open Source approach will produce a result that helps everyone.

Take a look. You will appreciate the wisdom of this creative approach. If you understand this post, you will take a big step toward understanding the whole "Open Source" concept. If it gets your interest, my Open Source License Law Page is not a bad place to start.

I expect more ideas for these "Open Source" projects in the area of the practice of law will be coming. The question is will we bring them out of the idea stage and into reality.

Posted by dmk at 07:20 PM

A Great Example of the Type of Technology Law Articles I Like to Find

Edward Perlman's "Integrating Business Goals And The Law In Licensing Deals" is a great example of the practical, tell-me-the important-stuff articles I like to find and recommend to non-lawyers.

The money quote:

"Lawyers and business executives have very different perspectives on the topic of licensing. Your outside counsel probably focus on what rights, obligations and liabilities are created in your company's license agreements. As in-house counsel, you want to know whether the license will successfully advance your company's business strategy of obtaining a technology or financial profit, or both. Obviously, integrating both sides is critical."

Perlman makes short, solid points that summarize the business goals (the "whys") and the approaches you can take (the "hows"). Lawyers often assume that you have thought through all the business issues and options. Businesspeople often have an unstated assumption that they expect their lawyers to bring up alternatives rather than stick to the draft agreement at hand.

Lawyers need to consider both viewpoints. Clients need to consider both viewpoints. In many cases, that does not happen, especially when lawyers are unfamiliar with licensing in general, with licensing and related strategies in your industry, and, worst of all, with the technologies at issue in the license.

Perlman's article is a great example of a way to bridge that gap. Highly recommended.

Posted by dmk at 07:01 PM

Summer Reading Tips for Tech-oriented Lawyers

Jerry Lawson recently reminded me that the second edition of Bob Ambrogi's book, The Essential Guide to the Best (and Worst) Legal Sites on the Web, has now been published. I got the chance to talk with Bob a few months ago when he had just finished the final galley proofs and the book was headed off to the printer.

For those who don't already know this, Bob is the real deal. He's been writing about and reviewing legal websites since the very beginning, and there's no better authority on the topic. Bob was also in the first big group of lawyers to create websites with great content and he is also one of the early lawyer bloggers (LawSites). My comment on the first edition still stands, "A highly useful and well-organized reference tool that should be kept beside every lawyer's computer."

I'm way overdue in mentioning Meg Spencer-Dixon's very useful The Lawyer's Guide to Palm-Powered Handhelds, a book in which I played a small role in the editing process and will confess my bias toward. I like the practical focus of this book, which shows how lawyers can use and benefit from Palm devices more so than dwell on esoteric, technical matters. This focus works well for me and for most lawyers. If you've bought a PDA, you might as well find ways to get your money's worth out of using it. This book will definitely help.

As long as you are putting together a reading list, don't forget that technological innovation in the practice of law necessitates a rethinking of how we charge our clients. Three great starting points on that topic are Jim Calloway and Mark Robertson's Winning Alternatives to the Billable Hour, 2nd Edition : Strategies That Work, Paul Dunn and Ron Baker's The Future of the Firm, and Alan Weiss's Value-Based Fees.

Why not turn off that darn computer and read a book for a change?

Posted by dmk at 11:56 AM

August 03, 2004

I found a great quote about blogging - and it was from me!

I love the global aspect of the Internet. Tonight, I ran across an article on legal blogging in the Australian Lawyers Weekly.

It's a very good article, but I was surprised (and pleased) to find a few quotes from me in the article, from an article I wrote a while back.

At the end of the article, I saw the following sentences that conclude the article:

�Firms who saw the down economy as a good time to take a nap on technology had better hear the alarm clock. The blawgers woke up the internet community in 2003. In 2004, it�s morning again in legal technology, and from where I stand, it is a sunny day.�

Wow! That really nails it, I thought. I checked who had said it and it was me. That's good stuff. If I'm writing stuff like that, it's no wonder so many people seem to like my articles.

By the way, it's still a sunny day and the sun is shining brightly over at the Blawg Channel. Check it out.

Posted by dmk at 08:00 PM

August 01, 2004

Ron Friedmann on Elephants and e-Billing

Ron Friedmann consistently writes some of the best analysis of legal tech and law practice issues that you will find. His latest gem is called "E-Billing Ignores the Elephant in the Room."

The money quote:

"E-billing may save on administrative costs but misses the main point. Now watch out - here comes a mixed and mangled metaphor - e-billing is really just the elephant�s dung heap. Push around the dung, position it more neatly, maybe even pick a bit off the pile, and presto, the problem is gone. But it�s not; the elephant remains with an unending new supply.

To really lower costs, focus on how the dung gets there. Put that elephant on a diet by making lawyers work more efficiently and effectively."

Ron refers to a white paper for LawNet on e-billing. He says, "The white paper shows that e-billing adds costs and creates hassles for law firms. I have yet to see empirical evidence that client savings from e-billing exceed the extra costs incurred by firms. (The economist in me suspects that e-billing may add to rather than save total system cost.)"

I have to disagree with Ron a bit on this one. It depends on your definition of e-billing. Many solos and small firms have moved to electronic billing approaches, which have the dual benefit of getting information to clients in a manner that can process quickly (if they choose) and gets the lawyers paid more quickly and easily.

In a more traditional large firm setting, I can see where there would be an argument that e-billing creates hassles for law firms. If I were a client, my reaction would be: "So what? I'm supposed to pay more or process bills more inefficiently because of your crappy billing and accounting systems? I don't think that makes any sense."

However, I don't want to quibble with Ron. I strongly agree with his conclusion:

"So if clients are not going to analyze e-billing data, then why not just start with how lawyers work? Why not examine the actual means of practice rather than the small - or not so small heaps - that billing leaves behind?

Where are the bold GCs willing to talk about the elephant and take it head-on?" [emphasis added]

For an excellent view of current attitudes of corporate counsel toward outside law firms, check out the recent ABA Journal article "The Outside Looking In." One of my favorite co-presenters I've ever shared a podium with is Jeff Carr, who is quoted in this article. Believe me, he is one of the bold GCs and one of the true innovators in new ways to pay for legal services. He definitely talks about the elephants.

Posted by dmk at 11:23 PM

Can I Market MY Law Practice With Both Hands Tied Behind My Back? In Missouri, I May Have to

Missouri's newly proposed revisions to the rules for lawyers wanting to advertise, market or solicit potential clients have been released for comments. Comments are due by the end of August.

I discuss the proposed rules in much more detail in this post on The Blawg Channel.

I'm dumbfounded by the proposed revisions. They are over-complicated, contradictory, do not take into account new technologies (such as the very new idea of email), apply rules appropriate to a limited number of trial lawyers to all lawyers, and generally micromanage the advertising process to guarantee that any efforts that follow the rules cannot possibly be effective.

Here would be my approach. Identify the specific problem areas. Consider the general principles of the First Amendment. Determine the least intrusive approach to address the specific problem area. Do no harm.

However, I'm not on this committee and, frankly, I have no idea what is intended to be accomplished by these rules or what thought processes produced them. Take a look for yourself and decide.

The only good news I see is that presenters talking about the wacky world of lawyer advertising rules have about 15 minutes of new comedy material.

I'm just at a loss trying to understand this kind of stuff. Heck, I gave them a set of comments a month or so ago, including a suggestion that referring to wording required on the "outside of an envelope" would make the committee look ridiculous in an era of email. They apparently were not persuaded by my comment on that subject or any other. I expressly offered to review the proposed rules for technological anachronisms, but was not taken up on that offer.

For a great thought experiment, imagine a yellow page ad strictly limited to no more than 1/4 of a page with all of the disclaimers and required language these rules require. You may have to leave your address out the ad.

I scratch my head in disbelief, but presume that these rules will pass with no further changes. I'm pretty sure that blogs are not outlawed by the rules, but I'm sure that I'll be adding a ton of disclaimer language to my blog and website rather than using the time trying to earn a living.

The irony, of course, is that the existing rules should cover the concerns the drafters seem to be most concerned about and that it might make a bit more sense to enforce the rules than to micromanage the marketing materials and marketing efforts of all Missouri lawyers.

Posted by dmk at 10:28 PM